Rev. Robert Jones - "The Darkness of Blackness" (Blues song video with photographs & drawings & also including lyrics)

Reverend Robert Jones, June 30, 2020

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a YouTube video of an original Blues song by Rev. Robert Jones
entitled "The Darkness Of Blackness".

The lyrics for that song are included in this post along with my editorial notes about that song and that video.  

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Reverend Robert Jones for his musical legacy and for teaching about Blues history on TrueFire : https://bit.ly/34FoPgg and on other online platforms.

Thanks also to Gigi Erba from Italy for requesting this transcription. 

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\LYRICS - THE DARKNESS OF BLACKNESS

[Verse #1]
Melville told a tale of a preacher who cried
Preaching to the men who’d come in on the tide.
They were tired and hungry and broken inside.
And he preached them the blackness of darkness.

[Verse #2]
And their sons and their daughters walked down the same road
Never knowing a life without burden or a load
But still from their hearts, you know, love overflowed
As they lived through the darkness of blackness.

[Chorus]
Forget not our fathers who were hung from the trees
Forget not our mothers who prayed on their knees
For the greatest of us is still lesser than these
Who lived through the darkness of blackness .

[Verse #3]
And our fathers were feared even though they wore chains
Feared from their muscle, and  feared from their brains
For when all else was gone still the darkness remained
And they taught us the strength of blackness

[Verse #4]
And with strong able women our fathers were blessed
And their beauty showed through even shabbily dressed
For a queen wearing rags is a queen nonetheless
They taught us the beauty of blackness.

[Chorus]

[Verse #5]
And our fathers built houses by the strength of their hands
Just to see them burned down by the knights of the Klan
But they look up to Heaven and they built them again
And they fought back the darkness of blackness

{Verse #6]
They fought it with sinew, and they fought it with bone
And they fought it together , and they fought it alone
And they fought it with marching , and they fought it with song
They fought back the darkness of blackness

[Chorus]

[Verse #7]
And you rise never knowing quite what to expect
And you rise in the morning demanding respect
And you rise in spite of the knee on your neck
When you live in the darkness of blackness

[Verse #8]
One day when our fathers we meet face to face
Though some sons be addicted and some daughters debased
Let us not have to say when they ask of the race
That we fell to the blackness of darkness

[Chorus]

Forget not our fathers who were hung from the trees
Forget not our mothers who prayed on their knees
For the greatest of us is still lesser than these
Who lived through the darkness of blackness
Who lived through the darkness of blackness
Who lived through the darkness of blackness

Darkness of Blackness, Robert B. Jones. Copyright 2002

In this 2020 video Rev. .Jones indicates that he "re-worked" this song, but gives no details about what was "re-worked" (the tune? the lyrics? the tempo?)

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTES

These notes are part of my email response to Gigi Erba that I wrote after watching the video that is embedded in this pancocojams post and after re-checking the lyrics that Gigi Erba sent me. (Gigi used the often faulty captions that are provided for YouTube videos and corrected some of those lyrics, but wasn't sure about one verse). 

Here are some of my thoughts about this song:

I really like the music and the lyrics are very well written. The chorus in particular is emotionally powerful. I almost felt like crying reading (more than hearing) those words since it's often difficult to understand what Robert Jones is saying/singing). Also, the photographs and drawings that accompany this singing are wonderful and are also very emotionally powerful.

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I assume that Melville is the novelist Herman Melville", but I'm not sure which story this is "about men [Black or otherwise] who "came in on the tide". Here's some information about Herman Melville
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville
"Herman Melville (born Melvill;[a] August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the 1919 centennial of his birth was the starting point of a Melville revival, and Moby-Dick grew to be considered one of the great American novels."...
-snip-
Herman Melville was a White American.

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In Western societies, "darkness" usually means something that is evil, or bad, or difficult. Given those connotations, I believe that Robert Jones' phrase  "darkness of blackness" implies the difficulties Black people have experienced and still experience just because of our race. 

I believe that the word "blackness" in this song means all those things that pertain to being part of the "Black race" including "skin color" and/or other physical features, and cultural traditions/experiences, and personal and systemic racism that people who are Black experience or may experienced/experience.

I don't like when that phrase is switched to "the blackness of darkness" (or I don't understand the meaning of that phrase). The "blackness of darkness" is used in the first verse and the last verse,  All of the other verses use the phrase "the darkness of blackness" except for the verses that highlight a positive aspect of being Black [Verse #3- "the strength of blackness" and Verse #4 - "the beauty of blackness"].  

It's true that the color black is dark (compared with all of the other colors),However, does "the blackness of darkness" mean that the positive attributes and/or experiences of "blackness" [of being Black] is overcoming (winning the battle) against "darkness"?  If so, what does verse #8 mean by the words
"One day when our fathers we meet face to face

{...]

"Let us not have to say when they ask of the race
That we fell to the blackness of darkness"
-snip-
I'm not sure what "preached them the darkness of blackness means in Verse #1,but it appears to me that "blackness of darkness" is something that isn't good since Black people "fell to [i.,e "were overcome; didn't achieve all they could have because of ] "darkness"].  

I think that "darkness of blackness" works better in verse #1 and in verse #8 instead of the "blackness of darkness". 
-snip-
I wonder if the two times that Rev. Jones sung the phrase "the blackness of darkness" were accidentally used instead of the  phrase "the darkness of blackness".

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The word "race" in verse #8 means "the Black race" (i.e. "of [some or all Black African ancestry].

When they ask of the race means "When they ask us for a report about what the race has accomplished".

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